4th of July Skittles

I couldn't decide what to do for a 4th of July mani, so I kinda just did a little of everything. I used more polishes then I thought I would lol.

These are all the polishes I used: Finger Paints "Santa's Magic" Hard Candy "Fireworks" Fing'rs Heart 2 Art "Star Crossed Lovers" Wet N' Wild Fergie "Hollywood Walk Of Fame" Essie "Blanc" China Glaze "Splish Splash" and Zoya "Sarah"

I started out with a base coat of Essie "blanc" it's been my go to white polish. It applies well, but it needed 3 coats to be fully opaque. I used 3 coats for a good starting point. I then started painting... This is what I ended up with:

 Here is the break down of each nail. All are over 3 coats of white.

 On my thumbs I used 2 coats of Zoya "Sarah" and using a striping brush I used Essie "blanc" again. This is suppose to be like the stripes on the flag.

 Next on the pointer finger I had to have the blue with stars, so I did 2 coats of China Glaze "Splish Splash" This polish is from last years summer neon collection (which is still one of my favorite collections) Application was smooth and opaque.

 I then used Fing'rs Heart 2 Art "Star Crossed Lovers" for the stars. They were being a pain so I used a dotting tool to place the stars in random places.

 On my middle fingers I applied Wet N' Wild Fergie "Hollywood Walk Of Fame" again I had to use a dotting tool to place the stars, and I didn't even realize I put them in a circle until I was editing the photos. It makes me think of fireworks :)

 The ring fingers are 2 coats of Hard Candy "Fireworks" the combo of red and blue made me think of the 4th so I though it was fitting. I wasn't crazy about this polish. It applies to messy for my likes. I think I might have liked it a little better if I had put it over a red base so that it looked more opaque.

 On my pinky nails I just applied 2 coats of Finger Paints "Santa's Magic" It applied nicely and I had no issues with it.

 After all of this was done I still felt like it needed something.

 Hmmmmm......

 AH HA!!! Just add a glitter top coat :) That always makes everything better! So that is just what I did.

 I guess it will do. I think if I would have thought about it more I think I could have come up with something better.

So what do you think? Does it make you think of 4th of July?

Thanks for reading and have a great holiday!!

Tri-Color Gradient

I hope your not tired of gradients yet, because I have another one for you, my dear readers, today!

I started with 2 coats of a silver Essence polish, but forgot to take pictures :/

I used the technique of painting the polish on the sponge and then applying to the nail. I had a few requests to do a tutorial so I will be trying to do that this weekend.

Ok so the colors that I used for this mani are....

 Spoiled "Tip Your Waitress" - One of my current favorite pinks

 

 FingerPaints "Silkscreen Green"

 and Hard Candy "Frenzy"

 I really liked the way this came out. In person it looks kinda metallic due to the base being silver.

 I felt like it needed a little something and I knew to not use a chunky glitter, since I didn't like my last mani, so I went a little more subtle.

 I decide to use OTD Northern Lights :)

 I LOVE IT!!! I think it gives this mani a little sparkle without over powering it.

 *drool* :D

Well, that's it for today. Thank you for reading. If you haven't already, don't forget to enter my giveaway that is ending in a few days!!!

Golden Beetle

I love "Beetle" by Hard Candy!!! I think it was one of the first polishes I got that got me into doing my nails more. It's so pretty and I love the color shift. It really makes me think of a scarab beetle and I love Ancient Egyptian stuff so this was right up my alley. I've had it for quite some time, but I haven't worn it in awhile. I thought it would be a good one to post about. It is still available to buy at Wal-Mart. It's pretty cheap too, I think $4! It's worth every penny!!!

So here are a few shots - 2 coats of "Beetle":

The main color of this polish is a purple and depending the the angle you look at it, it turns gold and sort of an olive green. It's gorgeous!!! And of course I always have to add something to an already great thing. I added China Glaze "Golden Enchantment" It is similar to "Fairy Dust" (which I use often) but it's gold... duh lol!

 I love sparkle and I think that "GE" really adds a lot to "Beetle" I feel like it gives it some depth and really catches your eye. I did 2 coats of "GE"

 Look at all the color!!

I also like that "GE" made it a bit easier to see the olive green - gold in the polish. I really love this color and I think everyone should have at least one bottle in their collection :)

Do you own "Beetle"? What kind of manis have you done with it.?

As always thanks for reading and please leave any questions or comments below. Happy Monday... Blah! lol

Hard Candy Holiday Polishes

Today I am going to be showing you the holiday mini nail polishes from Hard Candy found at Wal-Mart. They released a 5 piece set and 8 individual polishes. And here they all are for your viewing pleasure.

side note: I had to go to a few different Wal-Marts to find them all.

Here are all 8 of the individual polishes:

and here are the 5 from the set, without the box... I threw it out before I took a picture :(... sorry.

Since these are such small bottles I decided to swatch them on a nail wheel (or whatever you call them lol) so I numbered the bottle and swatches to correspond with each other since they do not have any names or anything. All swatches are 1 coat.

#1: A basic silver with micro glitter, nothing totally special but it's still pretty.

#2: This one is kind of a redish pinkish color. It has a shimmer in it and is really pretty in person.

#3: I guess this could be considered more of a tangerine then an orange. This one also has shimmer

#4: Your run of the mill black w/silver glitter. This is also very similer to their "Mischief" from the 2010 holloween collection I was able to find last month at Wal-mart in clearance.

sorry about the hair lol

 #5: In the bottle this looked similar to #1, but on the nail it is totally different. #1 was pack with micro silver glitter, where #5 has very sparse small round silver glitter and smallish hex silver glitter.

#6: It's hard to see but this one has a faint yellow base and has gold micro glitter (dupe of #11)

#7: I was looking forward to this one the most since I love green. It's not bad, the green base is very pretty and I really like the green glitter that is a little bit dark color then the base. (dupe of #12)

#8: This is a dupe of #3

#9: This is a lovely purple and I love glitter so this is a win :) I thought that this would be a dupe of #10, so I put them next to each other on the color wheel, but I was wrong and very surprised.

sorry about the red speck on #12 I had an accident with another polish so please ignore that :) Thanks!!

#10: This is one of my surprise favorites for this collection. It has a very pretty purple-to-blue color shift in it that I was not expecting.

#11: dupe of #6

#12: dupe of #7

#13: This is a nice bright blue with shimmer in it that makes me think of a nice clean ocean or some crystal clean water source lol

 Most of these polishes are very pretty and totally worth $1 each. There are a couple that aren't anything special, to me anyways. Everyone likes different things :) If you want to get them all I do want to remind you that 3 of the polishes in the 5-piece set are dupes for 3 or the individual polishes. The only difference in these polishes are the size of the bottles, the individual ones ar 4ml and the set are 3ml. I have them shown here:

So if you are wanted to get each color I would suggest getting the set and the black, blue, silver, red/pink, and the purple in the individual ones. 

One piece of exciting news before I go, in the next couple of weeks I will be annoucing possible giveaways coming up for my blog so don't forget to keep checking back!!!

Have you gotten any of these or do you plan to? If you have any questions or comments please leave them below and as always thanks for reading and don't forget to follow my blog.

An unexpected dupe!!

I recently found another blogger (NailXchange) who had China Glaze "Zombie Zest" and was willing to trade!! I was so excited. I later saw a picture of "Ick-A-Bod-Y" and have since been wanting that one as well. The other day I was at Wal-Mart and decided to take a stroll down the clearance aisle. I'm SO happy that i didn't I found 2 polishes I haven't seen before. They were from last Halloween from Hard Candy. I bought "Mischief" and "Wicked" After looking at "Mischief for a bit I decided to look and see if anyone had done a comparison between "Ick-A-Bod-Y" and "Mischief"... and they did...

I was soooooo excited. Now I don't have to drive myself crazy looking for the China Glaze polish :)

So on to today's mani...

These are the polishes I used for today...

L.A. Colors "Topaz", Sinful Colors "Show Me The Way", China Glaze "Ghoulish Glow, and Hard Candy "Mischief"

I wasn't really sure what I was going to do so I kinda just flew by the seat of my pants lol. I was going to use "Show Me The Way" as the base color, but I realized it was to sheer so I used "Topaz" as underwear. "Topaz" is a very pretty color and sparkly :)

 I used 2 coats of "Topaz" and then topped it with 2 coats of "Show Me The Way"

I wanted to use "Mischief" but I just didn't know what to do with it so I just pick up a paintbrush and this is what I ended up with lol

The stripes aren't perfect, but I'm still pretty new to all of this :) Well that's all for tonight. I hope you like it and please follow me and leave any questions or comments you may have below. As always thanks for reading!

Oh and I almost forgot... Here is a preview for my next post :)